Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Democracy in America
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Week 13: DIA Vol 2 Part 2 Ch. 8 - Vol 2 Part 3 Ch. 3
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Chapter 10 ON THE TASTE FOR MATERIAL WELL-BEING IN AMERICATocqueville claims that In aristocracies, the rich are indifferent to their material well-being while the poor are resigned to being poor. In contrast, in Democracies the rich live in fear of losing their material well-being, and the poor aspire to material well-being. In Democracies therefore, there is a general passion for material well being driven by social mobility.
Chapter 11 ON THE PARTICULAR EFFECTS OF THE LOVE OF MATERIAL GRATIFICATIONS IN DEMOCRATIC CENTURIES
Material gratification in a democracy is more simple
The goal is to add a few acres to one’s fields, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a home, to make life constantly more comfortable and more convenient, to forestall want and satisfy the slightest need without effort and virtually without cost. Such goals are small. . .It is also naturally restrained by a need to conform, or not stray too far from the average.
The most opulent citizens of a democracy will not exhibit tastes very different from those of the people, either because, having emerged from the bosom of the people, they really do share those tastes, or because they feel obliged to submit to them.And of course they do not want to spoil their chances of getting into heaven so they try to stick to what is lawful, moral, and what their religion dictates.
People want to be as well off as possible in this world without renouncing their chances in the next. . .His conclusion here is to accuse equality of conditions:
. . . The possession of certain material goods is criminal. From these they are careful to abstain. The use of certain others is permitted by religion and morality.
. . .not for leading men into the pursuit of forbidden pleasures but for absorbing them entirely in the search for permitted ones.It makes wonder how he came to such an untempered conclusion despite visiting jails everywhere he went.
Chapter 12 WHY CERTAIN AMERICANS EXHIBIT SUCH IMPASSIONED SPIRITUALISMTocqueville says that Americans are known to go through cycles and fits of religious madness, in response to the soul rebelling against the quest for material goods:
As he did with pantheism, which he both warned and predicted before, Tocqueville predicts the rise of mysticism in the United States. I would love to hear a discussion between Tocqueville and William James.
Chapter 13 WHY AMERICANS SEEM SO RESTLESS IN THE MIDST OF THEIR WELL-BEINGTocqueville’s answer here is that the American with the added dimension of limited time is like a business frantically trying to keep pace with new technologies, changing laws, and trends, individuals in pursuit of material well-being are also constantly changing their direction and strategy to obtain it.
Equality of conditions also plays a part by simultaneously increasing the hopes of all by doing away with the restrictions of class privileges to opportunity but frustrates those hopes by increasing the competition for them.
Chapter 14 HOW THE TASTE FOR MATERIAL GRATIFICATIONS IS COMBINED IN AMERICA WITH LOVE OF LIBERTY AND CONCERN ABOUT PUBLIC AFFAIRS
The link between material gain and liberty is explored here. Does he create a fallacy by trying to carefully confirm the consequent?
I am quite prepared to concede that public peace is a great good, yet I do not want to forget that every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.Somewhat easier to accept is Tocqueville’s suggestion that material gain drives order, but the American love of liberty acts to prevent order from progressing into tyranny.
Chapter 15 HOW RELIGIOUS BELIEFS SOMETIMES DIVERT THE AMERICAN SOUL TOWARD IMMATERIAL GRATIFICATIONSTocqueville suggests that suspending business on Sunday and dedicating it to immaterial religious concerns is necessary to balance to the material concerns taken up during the rest of the week. While Tocqueville stresses the importance of this practice for everyone he would rather see religious leaders locked in their churches than forcing the issue by political means.
Of course, religion did find its way into politics via. overly pious politicians who enacted laws to try their best to force the practice. These are known as the Blue Laws, or Sunday laws which have been found constitutional by SCOTUS on several occasions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_la...
Chapter 16 HOW EXCESSIVE LOVE OF WELL-BEING CAN IMPAIR IT
Tocqueville answers the question of this chapter by insisting that anything in excess, including the pursuit of material well-being will erode the soul.
Chapter 17 HOW, IN TIMES OF EQUALITY AND DOUBT, IT IS IMPORTANT TO SET DISTANT GOALS FOR HUMAN ACTIONS
Tocqueville discusses the benefits of long-term planning over the myopia of democracy and attempts to insert a direct correlation to religiosity due to its added dimension of extra long-term thinking, i.e., concerns for the afterlife, claiming religion and planning for the future are essential to each other.
Chapter 18 WHY ALL RESPECTABLE OCCUPATIONS ARE REPUTED HONORABLE AMONG AMERICANSTocqueville says everyone in a democracy works to live so the idea of work is respectable. By contrast, aristocracies consider work respectable, but working for profit rates a low opinion.
Is this still a thing?:
The reason why so many wealthy Americans come to Europe is to avoid this obligation to work. In Europe they find the rubble of aristocratic societies in which idleness is still honored.Chapter 19 WHY NEARLY ALL AMERICANS ARE INCLINED TO ENTER INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS
Equality drives the love of material well-being that industry and commerce are better suited to satisfying. Apparently democratic peoples are also high rollers:
Those who live amid democratic instability have the image of chance constantly before their eyes, and eventually they come to love all undertakings in which chance plays a role. Hence they are all propelled toward commerce, not only for the promise of gain it affords but also for love of the emotions it occasions.Tocqueville also suggests a constant pressure to gain wealth. Is this still a pressure today?:
In democratic countries, no matter how opulent we suppose a man to be, he will almost always be dissatisfied with his fortune, because he is less wealthy than his father and fears that his sons will be less wealthy than himself. Hence most wealthy people in democracies dream constantly of ways to acquire wealth, and they naturally look to commerce and industry, which strike them as the quickest and most powerful means of doing soChapter 20 HOW INDUSTRY COULD GIVE RISE TO AN ARISTOCRACY
Tocqueville suggests the rise of a manufacturing aristocracy as industrial science steadily debases the class or workers and raises the class of “masters” through strict divisions of labor creating inequalities that are hard to escape from. Tocqueville concludes this manufacturing aristocracy is one of the harshest on earth but most limited and least dangerous and democracy must be vigilant of permanent inequality of conditions in order to prevent aristocracy from returning in this form.
PART III Influence of Democracy on Mores Properly So-CalledChapter 1 HOW MORES BECOME MILDER AS CONDITIONS BECOME MORE EQUAL
Tocqueville asserts that higher degree of equality of conditions produce more mild mores. As usual he compares this democratic aspect of social order to aristocracies and provides one example of the casual and cruel indifference that can be expressed by the higher classes towards the lower. What happened to this assertion from the Introduction to Volume 1?
Nobles, despite the vast distance that separated them from the people, took a benevolent and tranquil interest in their fate, much as the shepherd concerns himself with the fate of his flock. Without regarding the poor as equals, they watched over the destiny of those whose welfare had been entrusted to them by Providence.Do we need to distinguish nobles from aristocrats?
Chapter 2 HOW DEMOCRACY SIMPLIFIES AND EASES HABITUAL RELATIONS AMONG AMERICANS
Tocqueville compares the aristocratic social structure to the democratic. In aristocracies there is a constant social battle between the lower and higher classes; the higher classes resist the struggle of the lower classes to raise themselves. In democracies Tocqueville claims citizens have nothing to gain from each other since they are all equal and are therefore less guarded and more relaxed around each other.
Chapter 3 WHY AMERICANS ARE SO SLOW TO TAKE OFFENSE IN THEIR COUNTRY AND SO QUICK TO TAKE OFFENSE IN OURS
Depending on the mood and perspective of the reader, Tocqueville gives what could be the funniest probable opinion in the book concerning American politeness and social graces which appear to be the seeds of the “ugly American”: provincial, proud, boastful, rustic, and equally ignorant of social queues and the more worldly social graces and obligations. According to Tocqueville, Americans, fail mostly at not knowing when to take a hint, shut up, and go home.
David wrote: "DIA Vol 2 Part 2Chapter 8 HOW AMERICANS COMBAT INDIVIDUALISM WITH THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-INTEREST PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD
Tocqueville posits the doctrine of self-interest properly understood also keeps the ill effects of individualism at bay."
It was interesting to me, in this section, how AT seems to think that self-interest well understood is about moderation across the masses. "The doctrine of self-interest well understood does not produce great devotion; but it suggests little sacrifices each day; by itself it cannot make a man virtuous; but it forms a multitude of citizens who are regulated, temperate, moderate, farsighted, masters of themselves; and if it does not lead directly to virtue through the well, it brings them near to it insensibly through habits."
I like to connection between "little sacrifices each day" and nearing virtue by the development of habits.
David wrote: "Chapter 17 HOW, IN TIMES OF EQUALITY AND DOUBT, IT IS IMPORTANT TO SET DISTANT GOALS FOR HUMAN ACTIONSTocqueville discusses the benefits of long-term planning over the myopia of democracy and attempts to insert a direct correlation to religiosity due to its added dimension of extra long-term thinking, i.e., concerns for the afterlife, claiming religion and planning for the future are essential to each other."
Interesting point early on in the chapter when AT says that "Religions supply the general habit of behaving with a view to the future."
Wonder if AT would simultaneously posit that the decline of religion (and a rise in athiesm or agnosticism) would decrease the habit of behaving with a view to the future. I'm not familiar with the modern atheistic/agnostic arguments, but I'm wondering what some of them might say to combat this argument from AT?
Kyle wrote: "I'm not familiar with the modern atheistic/agnostic arguments, but I'm wondering what some of them might say to combat this argument from AT?"Prove it.
David wrote: "Kyle wrote: "I'm not familiar with the modern atheistic/agnostic arguments, but I'm wondering what some of them might say to combat this argument from AT?"Prove it."
Not AT's argument in the existence of God, but either that (a) religion results in a view to the future or (b) the behaviors developed as a result of said view to the future, are beneficial to society.
While one might be able to "prove" or "disprove" statement (a) with the type of randomized (or pseudo-randomized) scientific experiments that would pass modern muster, but statement (b) seems unproveable in that it depends on a value judgment, one way or the other. What's the counter-narrative to: "a future view develops present habits that are societally beneficial". This is what it seems AT is claiming.
Kyle wrote: "What's the counter-narrative to: "a future view develops present habits that are societally beneficial". This is what it seems AT is claiming."By prove it, I was suggesting that Tocqueville provide empirical evidence for the truth of his hypothesis.
In order to better contain the discussion by not listing arguments from outside of text, One could employ at least two statements from the text to counter Tocqueville's religious habit of long-term planning hypothesis.
From Chapter 12 Tocqueville says:
Scattered throughout American society one finds souls filled with an impassioned, almost wild spiritualism that one seldom encounters in Europe. From time to time there arise bizarre sects that attempt to open up extraordinary pathways to eternal happiness. Various forms of religious madness are quite common in the United States.The Reeve translation is a bit harsher
Religious insanity is very common in the United States.This common condition and associated perspectives do not seem the highest recommended benefactors of rational thought, let alone long term planning.
In addition, Tocqueville also mentions Pascal's Wager, Pascal's Pensées Section III, #233), an argument that asserts that one should believe in God, even if God's existence cannot be proved or disproved through reason based on future outcomes of infinite or insignificant gains or loss. This is still a very popular argument among religious circles in spite of its many problems. Chief among these problems are religiously motivated biases and perspectives that result in myopic considerations and highlight deficiencies in planning.
David wrote: "Chief among these problems are religiously motivated biases and perspectives that result in myopic considerations and highlight deficiencies in planning."E.g. ?
There are two links in message 12. The first links to the text of Pascal's Pensees and the second, many problems link towards the bottom provides a fairly comprehensive list of the argument's shortcomings and problems.
David wrote: "There are two links in message 12. The first links to the text of Pascal's Pensees and the second, many problems link towards the bottom provides a fairly comprehensive list of the argument's short..."Shortcomings of Pascal's Wager, yes. But I don't read those shortcomings of the (logic of?) the Wager necessarily imply that "religiously motivated biases and perspectives" will "result in myopic considerations and highlight deficiencies in planning." One way of trying to clarify what I am trying to ask might be to say that biases, whatever their source, secular, religious, or otherwise, will probably lead to myopic considerations. Those alone may or may not highlight deficiencies, whether in planning or execution. Assessment of deficiencies may require .... and here I stumble in what to assign "responsibility," if that's even the right concept.
OK, it appears to be a slow week.I am simply arguing that Pascal's Wager, which Tocqueville brings up himself, is an example of flawed religious future planning and a stands as a counter example to his assertion that religion fosters better future planning because of its habits concerning an afterlife, for which there has never been any empirical evidence for.
Yes, the base set of human flaws shared by the secular and religious alike are readily admitted, but religion adds an extra dimension of its own internal and external biases, superstitious assumptions for which there is no evidence, and authoritatively underwritten prejudices as variously interpreted from sacred texts that that can only degrade its performance in future planning. For more, albeit admittedly extreme examples of poor planning, how many times have the end times been upon us? List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events
Basically Tocqueville is implying the idea that one cannot plan [as] well for the future without god; a misconception as nonsensical as the idea that one cannot be [as] good without god.
AdT seems to idealize the aristocratic utopia: happy peasants toiling in the fields, with no thought of bettering their condition and no desire to do so, while aristocrats fill their idleness with elevated tasteful entertainments and noble deeds.In America, advancement is open to all, and all know it, so everyone is an entrepreneur looking out for a way to improve his situation. AdT finds this deplorable, I guess. But is it due to democracy, or to the huge sparsely settled frontier that offers obvious opportunities?
Roger wrote: "But is it due to democracy, or to the huge sparsely settled frontier that offers obvious opportunities? "Great question.
Still about a week behind, though I try to read through the comments as I work toward catching up.I feel like T analyzed America too soon, though it probably suited his purposes to try and capture this new system for his countrymen. I just have the feeling that American democracy/capitalism/natural resources still had a lot of shaping to do. Some of his comparisons between democracy as it existed then and an aristocracy don't hold up as well today, I don't think, as they might have in 1830
Bryan wrote: "I just have the feeling that American democracy/capitalism/natural resources still had a lot of shaping to do...."(Laughing a bit.) Doesn't it yet -- i.e., have a lot of shaping up to do?
It does feel at times as if AdT took on a task that couldn't be done. But we see it from our U.S. viewpoint. If one looks at France at that time and trying to "sell" some variant of democracy there, I think it takes on a very different perspective. (I'm no history buff, but I found it very useful to listen to the Great Courses series on the French Revolution as we were starting DIA. Now I'd like to find the time to go back and listen again.) With AdT's seeming efforts to point out the risks and pitfalls of democracy, I think of the efforts even today to bring democracy to autocratic regions -- what are the lessons, if any, AdT offers beyond don't expect one size to fit all?
My edition includes his report on the new Swiss federal constitution, it is not a part of our reading schedule, so it would not be a spoiler to post about it. In this report he heavily criticised this constitution and offered some lessons from America or better to say recipes. So what he wrote: sovereignty must belong solely to central government, legislature should not interference in executive and judicial, executive should be centralised around chief executive, veto power is necessary, and, finally, no participatory democracy, public should be bare of participation in government except for the election and better to make terms of offices as longer as possible to hold election rarer. In my opinion this institutional framework is not a good safeguard against autocratic tendency and not good in dealing with problems of democratic society he dwelt so much in the second volume. But if understand him correctly, den Tocqueville did not believe that any institutional framework can help if people do not care about democracy and their freedom and political rights.
Lily wrote: "Bryan wrote: "I just have the feeling that American democracy/capitalism/natural resources still had a lot of shaping to do...."(Laughing a bit.) Doesn't it yet -- i.e., have a lot of shaping up ..."
Sure...it always will, I imagine, as long as people are involved.
I keep thinking of the Civil War, Reconstruction and the time of Laissez-Faire capitalism of the turn of the century. That and the rush toward Imperialism at the beginning of the 20th. That's not even to mention the social upheavals in the last third of the last century. So it seems to me that we have passed through some periods that have tempered the strain of democracy that T saw. When he draws conclusions from democracy in 1830, it reminds me of trying to determine what skills a three-year-old might have at thirty.
His particular attention on the difference between an aristocracy and a democracy falls apart, to my way of thinking, because in a sense, there is a kind of aristocracy in America now, though it isn't restricted by birth. In other words, if I consider the most important part of an aristocracy the fact that its inherent, then no. But if I think of it as a group that tends to hold power, then yes.
Just taking for example the robber barons--their children and children's children did develop a lot of the things T talks about that are reserved for an aristocracy--public works, political power, etc. So I think that maybe the general conclusions he drew about democracy as a democracy were either only true of a young democracy, or were only true if that democracy is never forced to adapt to changing world (or internal) conditions.
Bryan wrote: "I just have the feeling that American democracy/capitalism/natural resources still had a lot of shaping to do..."I recently read a comment about American democracy that strikes me as proven by experience, namely that democracy in America is an aspiration not yet realized, but toward which we struggle.
Although America has been, and is still, more democratic than other nations, democracy - defined as rule by the majority of citizens or their fairly elected representatives - has not yet been realized. Special interests of all types work unceasingly to advance their own interests to the detriment of democracy. This has been true since the founding when only land-owning men were permitted to vote. It is still true today when elected representatives are in the pocket of special interests, and when obstacles are thrown up to discourage voting.
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost."
Aristotle, Politics, Book IV
I am only a couple of chapters into this section of readings. But I do feel a lot of the proclamations he makes in these short chaps in VOL II are not backed up with any specific examples or discussion like he did in VOL I."Religious insanity is very common in the United States" and again makes an insanity comment when comparing to increased suicide rates in France. ..in America...insanity is said to be more common than anywhere else.
As AdT was discussing the grasping for material goods by Americans and moving so quickly from one thing to another before one dies, it made me think of today's "bucket list". Things to do or obtain before I die.
I am a little confused here. T states in chap 15 that it is the legislators' "object" "to raise the souls of their fellow-citizens, and keep them lifted up towards heaven." Isn't that the clergy's responsibility? Or is he implying that through governing & laws that legislators can restrain our baser instincts?
Chris wrote: "I am a little confused here. T states in chap 15 that it is the legislators' "object" "to raise the souls of their fellow-citizens, and keep them lifted up towards heaven." Isn't that the clergy's ..."While T states he is all for the separation of church and state, he seems to see it as a one way street in keeping the clergy out of politics, but not in keeping politics from encouraging its citizens to be mindful believers. T sees the consequences of non-belief as something that must generally be avoided.
Here is my Goldhammer translation
Though man delights in this proper and legitimate search for well-being, there is reason to fear that he may in the end lose the use of his most sublime faculties, and that, while bent on improving everything around him, he may ultimately degrade himself. There, and nowhere else, lies the peril.
Hence lawmakers in democracies and all decent and enlightened men who live in them must apply themselves unstintingly to the task of uplifting souls and keeping them intent on heaven. All who are interested in the future of democratic societies must unite and together make constant efforts to spread a taste for the infinite, a sense of greatness, and a love of immaterial pleasures.
Chapter 8 HOW AMERICANS COMBAT INDIVIDUALISM WITH THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-INTEREST PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD
Tocqueville posits the doctrine of self-interest properly understood also keeps the ill effects of individualism at bay. Self-interest is closer to what we think of when we think of selfishness. An example of self-interest properly understood is shoveling your fair portion of the sidewalk after it snows, benefiting yourself and the community. In some localities, this is mandated by law, so unlike voting, sometimes we are forced to combat our individualism.
Chapter 9 HOW AMERICANS APPLY THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-INTEREST PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD IN THE MATTER OF RELIGION
Now of course the matter of self-interest properly understood also applies to the idea of doing good to others in this world to reap the selfish rewards in the next. While Tocqueville does not believe it to be the sole motive of the religious, he does admit that religions leverage this belief. Toqueville also brings in Pascal’s Wager, a cost/benefit analysis of why one should believe or just pretend to believe that has been very persuasive to those who do have the time or the inclination to give it enough critical thought to dispense with it.
Regardless of these conjectures, Tocqueville finds the doctrine of self-interest properly understood to be compatible with and encouraged by religion and religious self-interest. Like Pascal's wager, this is yet another idea fervently believed by some and found less credible by others.